about faranak

my story

I am in the deep ocean and realise I am a little goldfish. Swimming around with my father, I suddenly ask him: 'Father, why are we called goldfish when obviously we are mostly orange coloured? Surely we can all see that we are more orange than gold?' My father replied that this is the way it is, and has always been. 'Do not question what has always been accepted and go on swimming!' The answer got me more agitated, more curious and more determined to find out the truth. I kept on asking but my father ignored me. As I kept swimming with more determination and the question spinning faster within me, I suddenly had a clear and bright AHA moment: 'In order to realise our True colour, we must become colourless.
- Dream, age 21.

Dreams have always been of great importance in my life. Often times, especially in my teens and early twenties I was left bewildered by my dreams, not knowing how to work with them or understand them. I would wake up knowing that I was given a message, but all the dream dictionaries in the world brought me only so far, back in the same clouds of confusion again. This all changed when I came across Carl Jung's work. In many ways, I realised inner work only really began when I committed to the psychoanalytical journey. A short series of dreams and experiences made it clear to me that I not only needed to be in analysis, but embark on studying the unconscious. And so the choice was clear, I had found a teacher I needed to learn from: Carl Gustav Jung. 

I first studied International and European Law at the University of Tilburg and Amsterdam during which I started a company that gradually took over my passion for law. For nearly a decade I lived the yang lifestyle of an entrepreneur and learned to managed teams from an early age, an experience that brought me many learnings in both personal and professional life.  Years ago, after a very sudden and intense awakening experience, this part of my life completed and I decided to be trained in Jungian psychology not long after starting Jungian analysis myself. I was trained at the Jungian Academy in The Netherlands. I’m currently a Candidate at the the N.A.A.P and enrolled at the C. G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht (Switzerland) for a second round of training for my IAAP certification.

Mysticism and the Feminine

It was during my training that I met my Sufi teacher in whose presence and path deeper parts within me opened that I had no access to before. While being held in the container of both Jungian analysis and a mystical tradition, I could let go and surrender into a deep transfiguration of myself and the way I knew life. From a place of emptiness, my work with the feminine and the mythopoetic realm started to arise from the depths of the unconscious.

Though I work through a Jungian methodology in the therapy room, the work with my clients and students at the Anima Mundi School happens on different levels through the spirit of the depths that belongs to the consciousness of the Feminine. To be able to work this way requires a balance between surrendering to the internationality and acausality that belongs to the nature of the feminine (Eros) and an analytical methodology and understanding of the masculine (Logos). It is through this interplay that the Feminine can become conscious in a new way in a time when it is most needed.

Whilst being rooted in the Jungian framework, my personal and professional interest in mysticism allows me to acknowledge and hold space for the deeply mystical aspect psyche. The religious symbols, myths and spiritual depths of psyche are often misunderstood, if not completely ignored, in the modern post-secular therapy room. Due to my Sufi training I am fortunate to witness the workings of the mystical and spiritual dimensions of psyche, it’s psychological complexities as well as it’s vital importance to the individuation journey. At the forefront of this personal interest in mysticism—as well as the Sufi lineage to which I belong—is the work of Spiritual Ecology: the urgent need to bridge the transcendent aspect of mysticism to a relationship to the Earth and the more-than-human world. My academic research is rooted in not only advocating the importance of Spiritual Ecology, but unearthing the human relationship to the natural and more-than-human world. Find more about my research here.

Working with me

Private Practice
We all have moments in our life when we are invited into an introverted space—a time of introspection and self-disovery. Perhaps it is a crisis that pushes us into this space, or a curiosity that has been awakened through a dream, a vision or something we read. However big or small the calling, it is a moment of significance and it is when we accept the call that the journey starts and our individual path starts to reveal itself. It is through this doorway that we start uncovering the threads of Soul and start weaving our own story into a new emerging story in participation with the greater oneness of which we are part. The slow, gradual but deep weaving we do in Jungian analysis is rooted in the soil and rock beneath our feet and branches out into the high heavens—connecting heaven and earth as we find our belonging in our becoming as a human being present in this monumental time of transition on Earth.

In my private practice, I work with individuals through Jungian psychotherapy, myth- and dreamwork and a subtle form of bodywork in which I am trained. An important pillar of my work is working with myths and fairytales, this is both creatively engaging and powerful when combined with Jungian analysis. In my practice I combine all of these modalities and help balance and align the different layers and levels of the body and psyche. Creative engagement is important for the psychological process, rather than purely analytical approach. It is from our creative engagement with life in her fuller dimensions that Psyche, [meaning both butterfly and Soul in Greek] can come alive within us; from a caterpillar into a glorious and wondrous butterfly that is the nature of the Soul.

 I regularly give talks and classes on Jungian psychology, alchemy, the mythopoetic and feminine consciousness at both public and private events. (Image above: Lecture at Embassy of the Free Mind, Amsterdam)